A Chinese application designed to "mislead" Americans
The echo of the scandal ignited by the international agency "Reuters" is still known to have more repercussions among members of the US Congress.
At the beginning of this June, as Washington welcomes the first signs of a hot summer, three American legislators openly called for an audit of the assets of a smart application company based in the United States. The call for this audit is the emergence of allegations reported by the news mentioned above agency, confirming that there are Chinese assets in the globally renowned "News Break" application, specializing in aggregating news, presenting it, and referring it to news websites.
These three American legislators say they have received information confirming that the application is involved in producing false news stories, relying on artificial intelligence in news production.
Reuters relied on court documents that lawmakers referred to related to copyright infringement, printing laws, and laws governing email newsletters. The application is accused of selling Americans' data to external entities, including the Chinese government.
As for the production of false news influenced by artificial intelligence, it concerns more than 40 articles or news stories published on the platform, in which artificial intelligence techniques were fully or partially used in shaping the news since 2022, relying on external data that could not be verified for accuracy.
However, this aspect is not the concern of the American lawmakers who raised the issue. According to Senator Mark Warner's comments to Reuters on the matter, the terrifying aspect of dealing with inaccurate news is the deep relationships between the company and a foreign government that Americans consider "unfriendly."
The three American legislators also said there is concern among American politicians about the relationship between the application "News Break" and Chinese investors, as well as the existence of a branch of the company in China where Chinese engineers work.
This means that the data of millions of American citizens is now under the control of these engineers in another country. The application provides the company with information, including personal data that can be used securely, in addition to providing a network of dissemination among Americans that surpasses traditional media outlets.
This news-aggregating application, which controls the display, prioritization, and dissemination of news to American phones, was launched in 2015. It has become clear that the Chinese are behind the ownership of the assets of this application, which obtained an American patent in the same year. Although millions of Americans believed that this smart application was purely American-made due to its headquarters being in the United States, specifically in San Francisco, the public opinion, according to news agencies, is currently shocked by the information revealed by the three American legislators, which confirms that Chinese government entities control this application through its branch in China.
And there is a link between the Chinese control of the application and the support that President Biden received during the 2017 election campaign.
"News Break" management is indeed in a delicate position, as it refused to comment on the news in favor of the news agency that first raised the issue and came out late to say that the Chinese only own 10% of the application's assets as an investment. But the silence that the management has maintained since these data exploded, and the failure to provide any evidence to refute the news story published by "Reuters" to the American lawmakers, confirm that there is indeed more to the story.